Elysia, Valley of the Nude (1933) reviewed
Brett Marcus Cook examines the propagandistic early nudist film
Elysia, Valley of the Nude (1933)
Directed by Carl HarbaughStarring Constance Allen and James Mack
After recently reviewing Unashamed: A Romance, I was thinking of what other films I could review and how to approach them from a historical standpoint. Elysia, Valley of the Nude is the first proper nudist camp film shot in the United States, beaten only by Michael Mindlin and Jan Gay’s 1932 globe-trotting documentary This Naked Age as far as I can tell. Many nudist film tropes from the 1950’s and 1960’s see their origins here with its meager plot: textile reporter James Mack is given a job by his editor to find a nudist camp and report back on his findings. After visiting a man named Dr. King, Mack is taken by King’s young blonde assistant Prudence Kent to Elysia, a camp run by Hobart Glassey, who helped produce the film and appears as himself.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Planet Nude to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.